* * *
As the light of dawn arose, Vaile slept and Vallaya began to come alive. People emerged from their homes and walked the streets, shops opened, and fields filled with laborers.
The village of Vallaya consisted of a single dirt road connecting Terem to the northwest and Urzichen to the south. Along this main road stood Andrei’s apothecary shop, Cornel’s smithy, the town’s modest church and a few other shops and houses. Behind the church extended the farmland that the tenant serfs of Vallaya tended and survived upon. Many lugars of land had long ago been reclaimed from the forest to create the rolling planes of farmland that stretched out to the east of the main street. The land was divvied up into several smaller tenant plots near the village, while the great noble estates of the counts and princes who lorded over these lands were located far into the distance over the horizon. In the opposite direction, behind Andrei’s shop, the unremitting forest extended unceasingly to the west.
Out of this forest, five cloaked figures entered the village. The five figures wore heavy, black cloaks that dragged along the ground. Their hands underneath were covered in leather gloves, and their heads were completely covered by black hoods that only afforded a small opening in the front through which to see. They moved in a V, like a flock of geese, with one figure in front and the two pairs flanking and behind the leader on either side.
The five figures stopped on the main street in front of the church, and once the villagers noticed them they gathered around, keeping their distance in fear. Cornel, the blacksmith, stopped his unending hammering and walked out onto the main street wearing his leather apron and carrying a hammer in hand. Josif, a serf, middle-aged and grey, stood at the front of the crowd with his staff in hand.
The leader of the cloaked figures, with a feminine voice, announced to the villagers, “We have come to see Magistrate Lucian. Could you please take us to him?” But she did so in such a hissing voice that the femininity of it was eclipsed by its harsh tone.
There was nervous muttering in the crowd, but someone did go to fetch Lucian, who was seated in an office connected to the church. The crowd waited in tense silence, looking at the hooded figures with suspicion and fear.
Josif alone was willing to act, and after a few moments of hesitation, he launched an attack upon the lead figure. With his staff raised and shouting, he aimed to crack his staff upon the hooded figure’s head. The figure stood in mute silence as he ran towards her, waiting until the last moment to move. When she raised her hand and parried the staff, Josif stumbled, his staff ultimately striking the ground. The dark figure pushed him such that he landed a few feet away and rolled onto the dirt.
“We came here to talk!” the female figure boomed and the villagers recoiled further. Josif pulled himself up and dusted himself off, smarting more from the embarrassment than from any wound.
Lucian emerged from the church, wearing a fine jacket, breaches and a trim gray wig, with ponytail hanging behind. Though he was well into his forties, he had the look and vigor of a man half his age, with a boyish, clean-shaven face and small, blue eyes.
Lucian looked at the five figures standing motionlessly in front of the small crowd that had gathered and addressed the lead figure: “It’s Asha, isn’t it?” She nodded and he said, “Let’s get you inside then. Right this way.” As the five figures approached he shouted at the crowd, “Make way. They are here at my invitation.”
Andrei stepped out of his shop to see the five cloaked vampires walking towards the crowd, which parted as they approached. Andrei’s wiry figure was dressed in a modest robe that covered over the shirt and loose breaches he wore underneath. His thin gray hair was cropped close against his skull and he bore a trim mustache and beard on his face. He had the look of modest, even stingy affluence, but also of relaxed comfort and ease.
Andrei watched the five vampires walking into the church with Lucian leading the way. He pondered the situation for a moment, before he decided to close up shop and see if could horn in on whatever meeting Lucian was engaged in with those vampires.
Andrei always disliked closing his shop during business hours and it was with some discomfort that he locked the front door, pushing it shut while the sign “Apothecary and Vampire Wares” swung back and forth. He told Cornel that he would be back in some fifteen or so minutes if anyone came by. Then he walked over to the church.
Andrei entered the great double doors at the front of the church, which opened into the narthex. He could see the nave, which was now empty, through the next set of doors. It was a large room with iconography—of Jesus and Mary and many saints—covering the walls and an altar and candles in the front. There were a few private offices to the side of the narthex, and Andrei passed through a door leading to a side hall, whereat he knocked on the first of these doors.
The door opened and the round, red-cheeked face of Beniamin, Lucian’s secretary, peaked through. He wore a brown, ostentatiously curly wig and always bore a pleasant smile.
“Yes?” he asked inquisitively.
“I have come to ask of Magistrate Lucian, if I could kindly insist, that I be permitted to enter. I think I have a right to listen in on whatever discussions you’re engaged in with these vampires, as a citizen of this village and an interested party.”
Beniamin opened the door a bit more and turned to reveal Lucian seated in the dark looking at Andrei. Lucian spoke up in his well-measured tone: “This is only a preliminary meeting, Andrei. We will be sure and apprise you of the content of our conference once we have finished. Be assured that you will be the first person to whom I will speak.”
“We have nothing to hide,” Asha shouted out in her snake-like voice, “Bring in whomever you wish. They can listen so long as they don’t speak.”
Beniamin shrugged his shoulder cheerfully and said to Andrei, almost apologetically, “Could you please close that door before you come in,” pointing to the door connecting the main church from the side hall where the offices were located, “We have to be careful of the light.”
After closing the door, Andrei stepped into the office and immediately asked, “Are you sure it’s safe in here? We’re not going to get infected?” Both Lucian and Asha nodded, but Andrei, still shrank into a corner as far as possible away from the vampires.
Lucian occupied a spacious office, containing an elegant wood desk, upon which Lucian would do his writing, and an entire bookshelf of finely bound books. In one corner a globe served as decoration, along with some oil paintings framed on the walls. But the whole costly interior was plunged into near blackness as soon as Beniamin closed the doors.
A single candle sat on Lucian’s desk and only the faintest traces of light leaked underneath the door. There was a window, but the curtains were closed, such that only an outline of light also leaked in around the edges.
Only in this darkness could the five vampires expose their skin. They pulled back their hoods, revealing their heads, which were entirely wrapped in a thin piece of black cloth. After removing the cloth, five stunning, pale faces were revealed, two females and three males.
All of the faces were young looking, flawless, sharp and colorless. They weren’t beautiful in the way that Andrei normally thought. The females in particular lacked the round, pink skin and soft feature that Andrei associated with his ideal of womanly beauty. Still, the females were, both of them, gorgeous—like a whiter, more angular version of a youthful belle in full bloom. The males as well, though carved out of the same mold as a Greek god, were leaner, more muscular and more severe than those deific ideals.
When Andrei saw them expose their faces, he recoiled instinctively and rose to leave the room.
Asha understood what Andrei was afraid of and said vehemently, “There is no risk of infection. If you want to listen, you’ll sit down.”
Andrei felt naked without the bird-shaped mask to protect him and swallowed uncomfortably, believing he was picking up the faint whiff of Asha’s aroma as he put his hand aro
und his nose.
Lucian turned to Asha and continued, “We have come to discuss a truce between the vampires of our coven and the surrounding villages,” rehashing what had been said for Andrei’s sake.
Asha began to lay out the conditions of the truce that she wished to initiate between the vampires and the villagers: “We will cease all our attacks and kidnapping, hereon and in perpetuity, and in exchange you will cease to kill us.” Then she looked directly at Andrei and added, “And cease to eat us.”
“I think that’s something all of the other villages can agree on. Most of our attacks are motivated by self-defense. If you ended any and all attacks on us, I don’t see any reason why we should continue hostilities,” Magistrate Lucian said, speaking judiciously.
“Except your ‘vampire wares,’” Asha added, “Which ought to be destroyed and the whole shop where they’re sold to be burnt to the ground.”
“Keep trying,” Andrei said, “You haven’t failed enough times? Maybe this time when you try to destroy it you’ll succeed.”
“Did I say you could speak, maggot?” Asha screeched, standing from her chair and approaching Andrei, “Your blood is probably as black as ash and tastes of venom, but I would drink it gladly if it might bring you just one moment closer to your death!”
“Please!” Lucian shouted, interjecting himself between them and urging Asha to sit back down.
“Andrei you were told to be quiet during these proceedings. I don’t want to hear any more from you,” Lucian said. Turning back to Asha, who had returned to her seat, he said, “I’m sorry. Let’s continue. Can I first ask, are all of the vampires in your group behind you?”
“The coven obeys me,” Asha said, “They disobey at their peril.”
“But what if one of them were to disobey? Then what?” Lucian asked, “What if one of them were to break this truce?”
“I would punish him severely,” Asha said with relish.
“I don’t know if that’s enough for us,” Lucian said cautiously, “We’d have more confidence if the offender were handed over to us, so we can be sure that punishment is being meted out? Is that acceptable?”
“Would you extend the same courtesy to us?” Asha asked, “Would you give us all your condemned criminals? Not just those who violate this truce, but all condemned to die?”
“That seems fair. I can discuss it with the other villages,” Lucian nodded, “And might I ask upon what food you vampires will subsist absent humans?”
“We will raise livestock,” Asha said.
Andrei nodded, looking at his two human companions. Directing his question to all present in the room, he asked, “Any other provisions you want to suggest?”
“We just want a truce. All other provisions are inessential. I suggest you gather the surrounding villages and see if they’ll buy into it before we waste any more time,” Asha said.
“I think they will,” Lucian said, smiling, “But I’ll get right on it. I think this will be something that will be mutually beneficial and very long-lasting.”
Lucian stood up and extended a hand to shake with Asha. She looked at it and didn’t move, saying, “I don’t think we should touch. I don’t want to infect you.”
“Right,” Lucian said, withdrawing his hand in embarrassment, “Beniamin will let you out.”
Beniamin, who had been hastily taking notes on a sheet of paper the whole time, his nose close to the paper to try and see what he was writing in the dark, now dropped his pen and sprang to his feet, leading the vampires, whose heads were now covered, out of the room.
After the vampires had left, Lucian opened up the curtains, flooding the room with light. He turned to look at Andrei and said with a small laugh, “You ought to be careful about Asha. She normally wouldn’t hesitate to kill you. Any different circumstances and you’d be dead. For a second there, I wasn’t sure if she could restrain herself.”
There was a knock on the door, and it was Beniamin, whom Andrei admitted into the room.
“What do you think of this truce?” Lucian asked.
“I don’t like it,” Andrei admitted.
“Of course you don’t,” Beniamin merrily chuckled, “Just as the bees wouldn’t like it if you took away their flowers.”
“I admit it might be good for the village. If the vampires don’t break the truce, that is. But I don’t trust them,” Andrei said, settling back into his chair and rubbing his beard with one hand, “There’s no reason for this truce. It comes out of nowhere. Why this? Why now? I think we need to know what’s going on with them before we agree to a truce.”
“You don’t trust them because we’ve always been at war. They’ve never had a chance to prove their trustworthiness. If we give them a chance, I think they will show their true worth, and they will show that they are human. They are as much human as we are. And they can cooperate, especially for something that will benefit them and us alike. They’re doing this because they, like us, are tired of fighting, tired of all the death. They want a new life,” Lucian pontificated, in his usual politician’s voice.
“They depend on us for food,” Andrei disagreed, “They are not going to give us up.”
“They will live on other meat and other blood. They can eat cattle and sheep like us,” Lucian said.
“We’ll have vampire shepherds then?” Beniamin laughed, “Leading their sheep to pasture in their black cloaks? That’ll be a sight to see.”
“I have to be returning to my shop,” Andrei told Lucian and Beniamin. He left the town hall and approached the door to his store to unlock it. A customer was already waiting in front, an oldish woman, who hunched forward over a cane.
“My apologies,” he said deferentially to her as he opened the door and let her in. “I just had to discuss some very serious political matters with Magistrate Lucian. I hope you weren’t waiting long. What can I do for you?”
Elixir of Flesh Page 2